Well it turns out Boehner is one of my readers (Hey Mr. Speaker!) so I've got some good news:
he took steps to clean up his lawsuit and remove the racial component, and actually the entire focus on executive orders, so that he could sue Obama for the "right reasons"
Thats said:
He didnt actually make his lawsuit better, he actually made it WORSE.
You see in his original Op-ed, Speaker Boehner laid out 4 reasons he wanted to sue the president.
He dropped Energy Regulations possibly because their are no examples other than the two executive orders I laid out last time, of the president doing anything on that. Fair enough I suppose.
But he also dropped education. Which again makes sense, as all the executive orders were kinda race related, so it was hard to oppose those without looking racist.
But for months republicans have been rallying against the "Common Core", which by inference at least was always the real objection on education. But it seems Boehner walked away from that too......
Which actually makes perfect sense, as Common Core is a voluntary programs (states can and have left) and was started not by President Obama, but by President Clinton, then later expanded by Presidents Bush and Obama,.
So it would be a little hard to say that something that started 15 years before he got to office is a sign of how Obama's using his power more than his predecessors.
Which leaves us with the Obamacare and Immigration issues. Which is where Speaker Boehners lawsuit devolves to totally and utterly a joke.
See Boehner is actually sticking to his guns on Obamacare. In fact that is now the sole issue of his lawsuit.
Now granted he did change focus a bit, he's no longer focusing on the executive order outlawing funding abortion for obvious reasons.
Instead he's focusing on the delay of the individual mandate by the Obama administration.
He says:
“In 2013, the president changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it. That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work. No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own.”
And to be fair, he does have a point. The Obama administration unilaterally changed the law without congressional approval, since the individual mandate implementation date was written into the law
Despite that this is actually problematic for JOHN BOEHNER and the REPUBLICANS on 3 levels.
1) They have voted more than 50 times to repeal Obamacare, they have shut down the government to stop Obamacare, and they have spend 5 years telling us how much of an unpresidented disaster Obamacare is.
Now if republicans win this lawsuit and force Obama to follow the law as written, what they will have done is brought MORE Obamacare, FASTER.
Which, you know if they actually believed their own rhetoric, they should be opposed to at all costs.
2) It turns out Republicans actually AGREE with and WANT the action they are now suing over.
Almost one year ago exactly, the House of Representatives voted on, and passed the "Fairness for American Families Act" a bill which would delay for one year the Individual Mandate of Obamacare.
In fact the bill passed 251-174. For those keeping score at home, their are only 234 Republicans in the House.....which means their is only 1 way to get 251 yes votes. The bill got Bipartisan support. (22 Democracts voted for it as well, while only 1 republican voted against and 3 more didnt vote).
Now of course the bill died in the senate and never made it to the presidents desk.
But yet he decided to implement it anyway.
Now normally if you are the minority party, in control of only 1/2 of 1/3 of the government, and the majority parties president decided to make one of your ideas into law, even though it couldnt get out of the Legislative Branch, youd be thrilled.
Instead Republicans, or at least Speaker Boehner, are furious that President Obama would have the unmitigated gall to AGREE with them.
The again, seeing as how Obamacare itself was a republican idea, maybe we shouldnt be too surprised.
3) Standing. So in order to bring a suit, you have to prove to a court that you have standing. In English this means you have to prove to the court that you are negatively impacted by the law your challenging.
Now you'd think that suing someone over a law you wanted enacted would probably also make it impossible to claim that law is negatively impacting you, and therefore deny you standing. And your probably right.
But just in case, Speaker Boehner has found an entirely different way to shoot himself in the foot.
Now you may have noticed before, I skipped 1 of the 4 categories Boehner originally claimed to be suing over, Immigration.
Well it turns out Boehner on the SAME DAY the announced his lawsuit would be over the Individual mandate delay, he also made comments about the current crisis on the border. (the question here is if Senator Lindsey Graham is right when he said if republicans dont approve funding for the president they will get blamed for this immigration crisis)
This clip was followed by Speaker Boehner saying:
“I’ll tell you this, we’re not giving the president a blank check, Beyond that, we will await further discussions with our members before we make any final decisions."
In fact the bill passed 251-174. For those keeping score at home, their are only 234 Republicans in the House.....which means their is only 1 way to get 251 yes votes. The bill got Bipartisan support. (22 Democracts voted for it as well, while only 1 republican voted against and 3 more didnt vote).
Now of course the bill died in the senate and never made it to the presidents desk.
But yet he decided to implement it anyway.
Now normally if you are the minority party, in control of only 1/2 of 1/3 of the government, and the majority parties president decided to make one of your ideas into law, even though it couldnt get out of the Legislative Branch, youd be thrilled.
Instead Republicans, or at least Speaker Boehner, are furious that President Obama would have the unmitigated gall to AGREE with them.
The again, seeing as how Obamacare itself was a republican idea, maybe we shouldnt be too surprised.
3) Standing. So in order to bring a suit, you have to prove to a court that you have standing. In English this means you have to prove to the court that you are negatively impacted by the law your challenging.
Now you'd think that suing someone over a law you wanted enacted would probably also make it impossible to claim that law is negatively impacting you, and therefore deny you standing. And your probably right.
But just in case, Speaker Boehner has found an entirely different way to shoot himself in the foot.
Now you may have noticed before, I skipped 1 of the 4 categories Boehner originally claimed to be suing over, Immigration.
Well it turns out Boehner on the SAME DAY the announced his lawsuit would be over the Individual mandate delay, he also made comments about the current crisis on the border. (the question here is if Senator Lindsey Graham is right when he said if republicans dont approve funding for the president they will get blamed for this immigration crisis)
“I’ll tell you this, we’re not giving the president a blank check, Beyond that, we will await further discussions with our members before we make any final decisions."
Which is cool and all, EXCEPT for the fact the president is NOT asking for a "Blank Check", he already has a plan for which he claims he needs 3.7 Billion Dollars, which Nancy Pelosi is trying to bring to a vote.
But apparently John Boehner doesnt really care about that. He thinks the President should do this on his own, and take responsibility for fixing this problem without the help of congress.
WHICH IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING HE IS TRYING TO SUE HIM OVER!
So yea, to sum up, Speaker John Boehner's position is that the president shouldnt act unilaterally without congress, except when he should.
Or maybe he just means he believes its illegal for the President to do things Congress agrees with him on without their approval, but the President is fully free to do whatever he likes on issues congress disagrees with him on, with out without their approval.
Which almost sounds like the Speaker's real objection is that the President isnt treating them like a "rubber stamp congress" when convenient.
So yea good luck with the "the president is doing something you think he's entitled to do, but in a situation you'd rather he not do it in" argument in court. I can already hear the judge laughing.
Oh, before I end, one final point. There is yet one more problem with Speaker John Boehner and the standing he needs to actually bring his lawsuit:
If he actually believed (which he doesnt), as he claimed that the president was violating the law and changing the way the country is designed to work, well it turns out the Constitution actually already has a process for redress of that grievance....its called IMPEACHMENT.
Which means their is no need for the court to involve themselves at all since they arnt needed, their is another, official way to do this.
The problem is, Speaker Boehner KNOWS he's full of shit.
Dont get me wrong, I'm sure he'd love to impeach the President, the problem is, that damn Obama wont cooperate by doing something illegal.
And Speaker Boehner lacks the balls to explain that simple fact to his caucus.
He also knows that, as much crap as the Republicans get for impeaching a guy for getting a blowjob, its nothing compared to the crap they would get for the next 20-30 years for impeaching a guy for agreeing with them.
It's also possible that Boehner even knows what he's suing over isnt illegal, and isnt contrary to the way the country was designed to be run. Take for example, the Alien and Sedition acts. Thomas Jefferson, then Vice President of the United States, won election to the presidency by pledging NOT to enforce those laws at all and issuing pardons to anyone who violated them. He was backed up in this by his future Secretary of State, successor as President, and author of the Constitution James Madison.
Thats a couple of guys its a bit hard to argue with on "how they envisioned the country to be run". It also establishes a pretty long precedent for selective enforcement of the law. Nor is it the only example. All 42 other presidents (with the possible exception of William Henry Harrison who died 30 days into his term) have examples of it as well.
Which is Boehners real problem here. He's got nothing he can act on, and doesnt have the balls to explain reality to his party. So his solution is to piss away your tax payer dollars on a frivolous lawsuit that turns him into a joke, and hope that you really wont pay attention to the details.
So I do stand by my original conclusion, even if the details have changed since my last blog....there is no way this ends in anything other than mockery for him and his party.
But apparently John Boehner doesnt really care about that. He thinks the President should do this on his own, and take responsibility for fixing this problem without the help of congress.
WHICH IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING HE IS TRYING TO SUE HIM OVER!
So yea, to sum up, Speaker John Boehner's position is that the president shouldnt act unilaterally without congress, except when he should.
Or maybe he just means he believes its illegal for the President to do things Congress agrees with him on without their approval, but the President is fully free to do whatever he likes on issues congress disagrees with him on, with out without their approval.
Which almost sounds like the Speaker's real objection is that the President isnt treating them like a "rubber stamp congress" when convenient.
So yea good luck with the "the president is doing something you think he's entitled to do, but in a situation you'd rather he not do it in" argument in court. I can already hear the judge laughing.
Oh, before I end, one final point. There is yet one more problem with Speaker John Boehner and the standing he needs to actually bring his lawsuit:
If he actually believed (which he doesnt), as he claimed that the president was violating the law and changing the way the country is designed to work, well it turns out the Constitution actually already has a process for redress of that grievance....its called IMPEACHMENT.
Which means their is no need for the court to involve themselves at all since they arnt needed, their is another, official way to do this.
The problem is, Speaker Boehner KNOWS he's full of shit.
Dont get me wrong, I'm sure he'd love to impeach the President, the problem is, that damn Obama wont cooperate by doing something illegal.
And Speaker Boehner lacks the balls to explain that simple fact to his caucus.
He also knows that, as much crap as the Republicans get for impeaching a guy for getting a blowjob, its nothing compared to the crap they would get for the next 20-30 years for impeaching a guy for agreeing with them.
It's also possible that Boehner even knows what he's suing over isnt illegal, and isnt contrary to the way the country was designed to be run. Take for example, the Alien and Sedition acts. Thomas Jefferson, then Vice President of the United States, won election to the presidency by pledging NOT to enforce those laws at all and issuing pardons to anyone who violated them. He was backed up in this by his future Secretary of State, successor as President, and author of the Constitution James Madison.
Thats a couple of guys its a bit hard to argue with on "how they envisioned the country to be run". It also establishes a pretty long precedent for selective enforcement of the law. Nor is it the only example. All 42 other presidents (with the possible exception of William Henry Harrison who died 30 days into his term) have examples of it as well.
Which is Boehners real problem here. He's got nothing he can act on, and doesnt have the balls to explain reality to his party. So his solution is to piss away your tax payer dollars on a frivolous lawsuit that turns him into a joke, and hope that you really wont pay attention to the details.
So I do stand by my original conclusion, even if the details have changed since my last blog....there is no way this ends in anything other than mockery for him and his party.
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